I am a huge fan of Owner Hooks. I have had a journey with treble hooks, as most of us have had. You go thru the balance of: Uber sharp points, short shank/non fouling, hook strength and ability to handle 80# braid or a giant fish, or both. I came around to the ST-66 Owner Treble Hooks as I refined my 8″ Huddleston rigging. I like to call it the Southern Trout Eaters rig. Reality, its a derivative and fusion of others rigs from friends my own flavors. Super small, sharp, XXX strong and well balanced hook was what drew me to the ST-66 for a small profile that would complement the Hudd vs. stick out and go against the flow.
The fish have literally beaten the eyes out of my hard and soft baits lately. You are sticking your bites with braid and ST-66. Remember, you gotta match your braid with strong hooks, because you can bend hooks and hook points EASY.
Now, as I’m getting salty, and fishing for saltwater bass, tuna, yellowtail, halibut and bay bass, to name a few target species…I’m going thru my tackle and saltwater-ize-ing it all. I am putting the 1/0 , 2/0 and 3/0 sized ST-66 on my Triple Trouts. I am replacing the Owner Hyper Split Rings, with larger Hyper Wire Split Rings. #8s and #10s in cases. Big ole split rings that require fatty split ring pliers these to work right:
I noticed Kevin has ST-66 on his baits too. Gold bar Triple Trout. That other bait is MC Swimbaits’ Slug. Cough Cough. If I fished for big bass in freshwater, I wouldn’t look at that slug for big ones, cough cough. Corey makes some killer baits and has pioneered things that make a lot of sense.
I really believe in the Hyper Wire Split Rings and ST-66 combinations for any baits with hanging trebles. They are heavy, and tend to make your bait sink a little quicker than lighter wire ST-36 hooks, but they are geared for whatever fishes you encounter (hopefully). The Slide Swimmer 250 comes stock with big ST-66s, to give you an idea of how well they match w bigbaits.
Good calico bass fishing is as satisfying as any largemouth bites I’ve ever been on. Great swimbait eaters. You have to search and work. I catch little ones around home, but there are good ones to be had at these local islands, LA County, Santa Barbara, Mexico, etc. That search is what drives me these days.
The 3:16 Lure Company Sunfish is a bait I reconnected with this year. I had fished it before, but after some sitting and thinking about some things, simplification and just expansion of the bigbait journey, I realized the bluegill/brim/sunfish space was something I needed to focus and commit to. I tied the 3:16 Sunfish and hit Okeechobee this past winter, and immediately picked up where I’d left off with the bait some years ago on places like Lake Otay. Let me be clear, you need a bluegill/brim/shellcracker/sunfish swimbait approach, especially around the spawn. So, the 3:16 Sunfish (and you should know that the 3:16 Bluegill is the exact same bait, just poured in a different color. Both baits are killer. I just like a little chartreuse and watermelon green in my life whenever possible), is a fish catcher.
The 3:16 Lure Company Sunfish. A great swimming bait, booted tail with lots of lift which helps get it up around shallow grass, yet, you can still sink it out and slow grind it back for a more mid water column retrieve. The bait can definitely be burned and it still runs amazingly true, as per the fast water section of the above video clip.
I fish the 3:16 Sunfish on a medium action 8 foot rod, moderate fast, parabolic style, 965 BBR G-Loomis Rod with a Calcutta 300 TE Reel. I am using 65 Pound Power Pro Braid (no mono leader as per in the video, yet….I’m still messing around but straight 65# braid is awfully good) and one single 1/0 ST-41 Owner Treble Hook. Why the ST-41? I feel like the ST-41 Treble Hooks are excellent when fish load up and just eat a bait. you don’t ‘skin hook’ or barely hook fish on the 3:16 Sunfish. They eat the whole damn thing. If I’ve only got one hook, and I’m getting 4-6+ fish, which is common, I need one strong hook and the ST-41 has worked well for me, especially when matched with 65# Braid. You could definitely use the ST-36 Owner Stinger Treble here too. I am constantly trying new things and just sorta testing and seeing what works and what doesn’t and found the single 1/0 ST-41 Treble Hook to match this bait and how I’m fishing it on braid really well.
Slashing and Burning. The tail of the 3:16 Sunfish and Bluegill is a ‘slasher’ as far as I’m concerned. It’s like a buzz saw. But it’s got a lot of twist in it too, so what do you call a twisting buzz saw? A twistbuzzstersaw. Say that 5 times fast!
The purpose of this Swim Signature series is to provide an underwater and slowed down look at various baits, big and small. Not to critique or necessarily ‘review’ the baits, at least, not yet. This is an objective, here is this bait swimming in the water look. You can form you own conclusions, but I suggest you might pick one or four of these 3:16 Sunfishes up. They are softbaits, they fish really well, you can catch a bunch of fish per bait, and you will see in some future productions, they catch nice size and numbers. For $12.99 you get a lot of bait that will be worth the money, and I’m about 99.99% sure your bait will run true, as per Mickey’s packaging and quality control standards. His baits just swim bang on out of the box. Bass inherently have a contentious relationship with the panfishes, which means they tend to eat them out of anger and hunger, which tells me I need to be throwing them, especially when trout are not an option.
What do Paul McCartney and the 3:16 Sunfish have in common? They both love to twist and shout. “You know you twist so fine!”
Here is some previously unreleased footage and insights into grass swimbait fishing with the Huddleston Deluxe Weedless Suite of Baits: The Grass Minnow, The Weedless Shad, and the 6” Weedless Trout. This is the first part of what we are calling “The Big O Sessions”, and this Part One is called: Grass Swimmers.
This footage was shot on Florida’s Lake Okeechobee, in January 2011. We are celebrating the launch of a new site for southernswimbait.com and just celebrating rising water levels on Okeechobee and counting our blessing for still being on the road, fishing. Gonna keep the train rolling into 2012.
Notes: Watch the hook sets in the above video. Slower action rods, sweeping pressure set style hook sets. Long whip casts, where you have 12-15” of line out from your rod tip and make a whip cast to get the bait out there and maximize casting distance with an 8 foot rod. Whatever style or brand of sunglasses you wear, try out some Yellow lenses in the black Florida water. You will be amazed at what Yellow lens technology does to brighten up that black Florida water, no matter if the sun is out or not. I wear my Kaenon Hard Kores with the Y-35 lens everyday in Florida (including out to the night clubs in South Beach, it helps me blend in with the hipsters!).
